Dream Destinations Travel

1. What my clients are booking now:
2. What Slowing Down Actually Looks Like.
3. Best Places for a Slower Kind of Getaway
   1. Italy (Specifically Umbria, Piedmont and Sardinia)
   2. The “Slow Safari”
   3. Big Bear Lake, California (The Alpine Wellness Escape)
   4. Kyoto & Rural Japan
   5. Andalusia, Spain
   6. Chiang Mai & Northern Thailand
   7. Nicaragua
4. A Note for Clients Exploring Jewish Heritage
5. Pro Tips for Planning Your Own Slower Trip
6. Let’s Plan Something Slower

What my clients are booking now:

Every year around this time, my phone rings, and on the other end is a client who is already utterly drained from their job, their daily routine, and from the sheer overwhelm of trying to map out a vacation for what is left of summer, or the upcoming Holidays. They are worn down from scrolling through vacations that looked perfect online but doesn’t quite seem to fit what they are looking for.

What they actually want, once we start talking, is something slower. A trip that gives them something back instead of taking more out of them. Families want time for their kids separately from themselves so that they can enjoy their vacation also as opposed to trying to figure out how to entertain the kids every day.

That is what intentional travel really is. It is choosing a vacation based on how you want to feel when it is over, not how many places you can check off or how the photos will look. In 2026 this has picked up real momentum. Hilton is calling it the “whycation,” a movement where travel starts with a motivation rather than a destination, asking why you need to go somewhere rather than where you should go. Relaxation, rejuvenation and mental reset keep coming up as the top priority when my clients and I sit down to plan, and I hear it constantly now, how much a slower pace helps clear their head.

I always start the conversation with: what do you want to bring home from this trip? I am not talking about souvenirs. That question sits at the heart of intentional travel, exploring the world on purpose, being present, and pacing yourself instead of rushing the itinerary. It leaves you restored instead of depleted, and it is becoming the defining shape of the trips I book. Families tell me they want to come home rested, not more tired than when they left, and they ask me for destinations with enough for the kids to learn about the culture while the parents actually get to explore and unwind.

What Slowing Down Actually Looks Like.

Intentional travel starts with choosing experiences based on how you want to feel, not what you feel obligated to see. Skip the fourth museum of the week for a long, unhurried lunch on a farm in Tuscany where you spent the morning helping with the harvest. Choose one region to experience deeply instead of four countries superficially.

I always tell clients to build a trip around one thing they truly love, not just the landmarks everyone photographs. If you love to cook, a private class with a local family in Tuscany or Puglia will teach you more about a place than any guided tour. If wine is your thing, spend a full afternoon at one vineyard instead of rushing through three. If you would rather sit by the water with a book for two hours than see a fifth church, build that into the day on purpose. That is the whole idea. The trip bends around what actually restores you, not the other way around.

Best Places for a Slower Kind of Getaway

Italy (Specifically Umbria, Piedmont and Sardinia)

While travelers frequently rush the “Holy Trinity” (Rome, Florence, Venice) on tight schedules, Italy’s countryside is the birthplace of the Slow Food movement. To do Italy slowly, you head to regions where life revolves around the land, the harvest, and the kitchen table.

• Why it works: Umbria (often called the “green heart of Italy”) and Piedmont (nestled against the Alps) are built for lingering. Renting a stone agriturismo (farm stay) for a few weeks lets you follow the hyper-local rhythms: truffle hunting in the autumn, participating in olive harvests, visiting tiny family-run wineries, learning the precise art of making regional pasta by hand, a private cooking class; it is one of the best ways to spend a slow afternoon and come home with a skill instead of just photos.

Sardinia is another gem in Italy that offers a slower way in. One shaped by coastline, village life, and the rhythms of the Blue Zone. To experience the island fully, you slow down in places where daily life is tied to the sea, the hills, the harvest, and the kitchen table.

• Why that works: Sardinia is not just a destination to see; it’s a place to feel. Its villages, shared meals, and unhurried pace make it ideal for slow travel, where the goal is less about checking off sights and more about staying long enough to connect with the landscape, the people, and the culture.

The “Slow Safari”

A safari is intentional travel at its most complete. The pace is set for you the moment you arrive, early mornings, long golden afternoons, and real quiet in between. What I tell first time safari clients is to build in at least one full day with nothing scheduled beyond the game drives. That is where the best moments happen, not on the busiest day of the trip. Some travelers treat a safari like a high-speed game of wildlife bingo, rushing from one national park to the next to check off the “Big Five” in three days. A slow safari flips the script by keeping you in one place, ideally a community-owned private conservancy. for at least a week.

• Why it works: When you stay at a single, eco-conscious camp the rhythm changes. Instead of spending all day in a bumpy 4×4, you can do multi-day walking safaris tracked by local Maasai or Samburu guides. You get to understand the ecosystem’s smaller details, track animal behavior over days, and directly support community-led conservation.

Big Bear Lake, California (The Alpine Wellness Escape)

Perched at 6,700 feet in the San Bernardino Mountains, Big Bear offers a rustic yet deeply rejuvenating environment. As you wind up the mountain roads, the smog and city noise give way to dense pine forests, vast blue water, and a slower, high-altitude pace of life.

The Wellness Shift: Big Bear has matured far beyond a basic mountain retreat, quietly emerging as California’s newest wellness pinnacle. Sitting at 6,750 feet, it offers a stunning beauty that rivals coastal wellness havens like Ojai or Malibu, but with a sharper, more electric alpine edge. At this elevation, the mountain air acts as a natural cognitive reset and physical training tool, where forest bathing isn’t an intentional performance, it’s just the organic reality of stepping outside among the pine trees. Whether it’s high-altitude breathwork, cold-air recovery, or simply using the stillness of the lake to quiet a busy mind, Big Bear’s true luxury lies in its power to downshift your nervous system and hold space for a deep-exhale restoration.

• Why it works: Instead of booking a chaotic weekend ski trip, staying for a week or two lets you truly experience “wilderness wellness”. You can spend your days alternating between local sound baths, holistic energy healing, visit one of the many amazing spa’s, or just enjoy gentle paddleboarding on a glassy morning lake. The presence of dedicated mindfulness sanctuaries means you can easily integrate silent forest walks, yoga, and meditation into your daily routine without any pressure to rush.

Kyoto & Rural Japan

Most tourists speed through Japan on bullet trains, but settling into one region reveals an entirely different country. Kyoto and its surrounding traditional villages are deeply grounded in seasonal mindfulness.

• Why it works: Sinking into a local neighborhood allows you to witness the micro-seasons change, participate in neighborhood cleanup days, and visit the same local bathhouse (onsen) or noodle shop until you are recognized as a regular. Public transit is flawless, meaning you don’t need a car to explore deeply.

Andalusia, Spain

Life in southern Spain doesn’t rush for anyone. Golden historic hubs like Seville, Granada, and Cádiz move to a strict daily rhythm centered around the siesta, long shared lunches, and late-night tapas walks.

• Why it works: Renting an apartment in a white-walled village (pueblo blanco) or a quiet city neighborhood gives you access to local daily markets, affordable regional wines, and a beautifully laid-back social atmosphere.

Chiang Mai & Northern Thailand

While Thailand’s islands pull in fast-paced holiday crowds, the mountainous north offers a much gentler pace of life. Chiang Mai blends historic Buddhist culture with excellent modern amenities.

• Why it works: It features some of the best digital nomad infrastructure in the world—fast Wi-Fi, endless cafes, and inexpensive apartment rentals. You can spend your weeks taking slow morning strolls past ancient golden temples, learning northern Thai cooking, and browsing quiet weekend artisan markets.

Nicaragua

Often called the “land of lakes and volcanoes,” Nicaragua is a pristine Central American gem for budget-conscious slow travelers looking to avoid massive commercial crowds.

• Why it works: You can split your time between historic colonial towns like Granada and serene natural retreats like Ometepe Island or the volcanic crater lake of Laguna de Apoyo. It’s highly affordable, has a burgeoning cafe culture, and offers a diverse landscape that you can explore entirely at a leisurely pace by local bus.

A Note for Clients Exploring Jewish Heritage

For many of my clients, slow travel and heritage travel go hand in hand. If tracing family history or visiting sites of Jewish history and memory is part of your trip, I encourage building real time into the itinerary rather than treating it as a single stop.

A morning in Krakow’s Kazimierz district, an afternoon in Rome’s Jewish Quarter, or time at a memorial site deserves space to sit with what you are seeing, not a rushed hour between other stops. I have a personal connection to this kind of travel myself, and I always build in quiet time afterward, a good meal, a walk, a chance to simply process, rather than moving straight into the next thing on the list. If this is part of your trip, tell me early, so I can build the pacing around it properly.

Pro Tips for Planning Your Own Slower Trip

Choose fewer destinations. Every additional stop adds logistics, and logistics eat into the time you actually get to enjoy. Stay longer in each place than feels efficient. It is in the extra days that a destination starts to reveal itself, and where the best memories tend to happen.

Leave real unscheduled time on the itinerary. Some of my clients’ favorite memories came from an afternoon that was never planned at all.

Build each stop around one anchor experience, whether that is a cooking class, a vineyard, a spa day, or a heritage site, rather than trying to fit in everything a destination offers.

Prioritize local guides over generic group tours. A knowledgeable local guide can turn a good trip into an unforgettable one.

Tell me what you actually love before we plan anything. The best itineraries I build are the ones shaped around a client’s real interests, not a generic list of sights.

Let’s Plan Something Slower

Intentional travel is not about doing less. It is about making room for what actually matters to you, whether that is a cooking class in Tuscany, quiet mornings on safari, a proper spa day, or time spent tracing your own history. If you are ready to plan a trip built around how you actually want to feel when you come home, I would love to help you build it.

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